R.I.P. Toronto audio engineer Peter J. Moore, 1956-2023

Sadly, Grammy & Juno-winning audio engineer Peter J. Moore has passed away at 67. He's being remembered Nov. 25.

That time the Sadies joined the Mekons on stage in Zürich

Here's Sally Timms and Dallas Good leading a sloppy-great rip through "Rock 'n' Roll" at El Lokal on May 29, 2011. 

Alejandro Escovedo tops TURF's stacked Sunday line-up @ Fort York (1 pm) and The Horseshoe (10:45 pm)

TURF – OUTDOORS @ Fort York

Sunday, July 7th Gates: 11:00AM
8:30PM	Belle & Sebastian
7:10PM	Neko Case
6:00PM	Xavier Rudd
5:00PM	Cat Empire
4:00PM	Whitehorse
3:00PM	Yo La Tengo
2:00PM	Kurt Vile & The Violators
1:00PM	Alejandro Escovedo & The Sensitive Boys
12:10PM	The Sadies
11:20AM	The Wooden Sky

A new *improved* Andre Williams album

If you recently picked up a copy of Andre Williams' oddly low-key Bloodshot release Hoods & Shades – which he calls "my folk album" – and were wondering what happened to the raunchy rhythm & booze-inspired frolic for which Mr. Rhythm is known and loved, evidently Andre was saving it up for a rematch with the Sadies. 

On May 15, Yep Roc (Outside in Canada) will release the Jon Spencer-produced Night & Day packed tight with the sort of lascivious humpin', bumpin' and thumpin' we've come to expect from Andre Williams. That's right, no Don Was involvement whatsoever. Phew! The label has thoughtfully made Andre's much-anticipated comeback album available for pre-order in various configurations which you can get directly from Yep Roc's site

Here's the press release: 

Canada’s finest live band, The Sadies, have reunited with explicit soul singer/cult legend Andre Williams for Night & Day on Yep Roc records. Night & Day is the result of sessions that began in 2008 at Key Club Studio in Detroit and captures Andre, then 70 years old and still using at the time, at his most raw, honest, and immediate. No filter. 

Andre is aided by a stellar cast of musical friends, dirty bluesers who have earned the trust of the ancient hustler, including Jon Spencer (who directed these sessions) and Matt Verta-Ray of Heavy Trash, Danny Kroha of Detroit’s own gutter-blues superheroes, The Gories, the unsinkable Mekon, Jon Langford, and of course, behind it all, The Sadies’ long-time line-up of Dallas Good on guitars and keys, his brother Travis Good on guitars and fiddle, Mike Belitsky on drums, and the mighty Sean Dean on the bass. The result is a raw, gritty slice of raunch rock that has attitude in spades and the hooks and playing to back it up.

The story starts at Key Club Studio, an old school jungle of analogue gear an hour outside of Detroit. Andre had just been sprung from a few days in the county cooler where he was being held on powder possession until his manager came to bail him out, a charge he would eventually beat, but his most recent stop in stir is reflected in "Your Old Lady," a song about sending a lover back to her man after he gets out of prison.

Throughout these sessions, Andre kept his rum buzz and his harangue on, and even if he showed up missing his bottom row of dentures -- he growls "I like my rum, coz I got no teeth, I let it flow over my gums" -- he was still able to drawl and percolate his continuing narrative of life in songs. In "America" he sings that "Living in America ain't no fun, better have some money or you'll be on the run, and it's a goddamn shame, without cash you're trash... the men are dogs, the women are hogs, but that ain't a bad thing... it's better than living in Africa."

Since these sessions, Andre was able to shake off some of his demons and has been living clean ever since. Says Andre, "I like where I am now. My family admires me now. I kinda wanna keep it like that."

Dallas Good writes in the liner notes for Night and Day that the first session "was good but we were worried for Andre. A couple years later, everything was different. He was sober and sharp. Agile, mobile and hostile. Night and Day. It wouldn't be fair to the new Andre (who I'd never met after working together for like, 12 years) to let the old Andre have this album. So we did more."

The resulting record is a modern classic, with Andre showing remarkable range -from heartbreak and bitterness to ribald humor, swagger, sleaze, fear and retribution, romance gone right and romance gone wrong, and all in the spirit of the sloppy fun that has made him a legend. Andre Williams represents as the first and last of a breed of pimp-rolling R&B wise men, the real deal, an authentic totem of the low-down and disreputable, a man who has played outside the law, and outside the record business, and somehow managed to come out not only alive, but with a fervent cult behind him.

Night and Day

1. I Gotta Get Shortly Out Of Jail

2. America (You Say "A Change Is Gonna Come")

3. The Seventy Year Old

4. Your Old Lady

5. Bored

6. Mississippi & Joliet
7. I Thank God

8. Don't Take It

9. One-Eyed Jack (listen)

10. Hey Baby!

11. I'll Do Most Anything For You

12. That's My Desire

13. Me and My Dog

How Gordon Pinsent made a record with Greg Keelor (Blue Rodeo) and Travis Good (Sadies)

Down and Out In Upalong, part 1



Down and Out In Upalong, part 2



Gordon Pinsent reads Justin Bieber

Andre's Back In Ass-kicking Action

Despite the dearth of advance press, Andre Williams' post-rehab return to Toronto's Legendary Horseshoe Tavern with the Sadies last night turned out to be a spectacular triple-bill triumph to the delirious delight of the packed house.
Resplendent in red, the 73-year-old mack daddy of raunchy R&B shook, shimmied and shouted in tip-top condition suggesting that performing alongside two gorgeous go-go gals like Vivian and Veronica Verre (pictured) was a much safer and perhaps even more effective stimulant than booze or blow. Even though the Sadies had only a 45-minute rehearsal with Williams to pick out appropriate songs for the night, you'd never know it from the seamless, well-paced set that built beautifully to a storming crescendo with a raging rip through Bad Motherfucker that had the whole brew-hoisting crowd shouting the tag-line in unison.
Silly grins could be seen pasted on people's faces all over the club, including those of local celebs in attendance Ron Sexsmith, Dan Burke, Craig Daniels, producer Peter Moore, OPM label boss Jan Haust, Neil Young's brother Bob Young (who was climbing on the railing to get a better view) and ace shutterbug Shadowy Don Pyle who took time out from assembling his highly-anticipated book of punk-era photographs to document the memorable event. You can thank Don for kindly supplying the snazzy accompanying image above.
Can't wait for Andre's new album with the Sadies and Heavy Trash which, from all reports, is gonna be a doozy. In the meantime, check out Andre's new work of fiction Sweets And Other Stories (Kicks Books) which you can read all about in the post from Satuday (November 14).

Here's a clip of Andre and the Sadies performing a magnificently menacing version of I Can Tell at the Casbah in Hamilton, Ontario on the following night.

Andre Williams w/ The Sadies @ the Casbah 11/20/09

Andre Williams' novel turn

 Along with Andre Williams' considerable skills as a producer, arranger and house-wrecking showman, we all knew reckless R&B raconteur was a talented tunesmith as well. But evidently the composer of such timeless classics as Bacon Fat, Jail Bait, Shake A Tail Feather, Pig Snoots and I Want To Be Your Favorite Pair of Pajamas wasn't content with just writing dancefloor destroyers so the wildly creative Williams decided to mark his 73rd birthday with the publication of his first book of fiction, Sweets and Other Stories.
The swankly designed old school Signet tall-style paperback is the first release of Kicks Books, an off-shoot of Norton Records which is currently celebrating it's 30th anniversary as a proudly independent label. It was actually Norton co-founder and dime-store novel aficionado Miriam Linna who suggested to Williams the potential therapeutic benefits of writing prose during his recent 42-day stint in rehab.

Williams took the advice and wrote what he knew. True to salacious form, it's a terrifically trashy bit of streetwise pulp fiction – more Donald Goines than Iceberg Slim – populated by pimps, hookers, thugs, snitches and dope-dealers, just the sort of sleazy characters Williams understands implicitly from his own hard hustling life in the music biz. Although much of the action is set in Chicago, where Williams currently resides, don't count on Sweets and Other Stories getting big upped on Oprah's Book Club. But who knows, maybe Quentin Tarrantino will buy the film rights and keep Andre in vintage Cadillacs for years to come.

Of course, recording and performing music remains Andre's main focus. He's just finishing up a new Jon Spencer-produced album with the ever-fabulous Sadies  providing musical support. The Sadies will be joining Williams to road test some of the new material at the Horseshoe (370 Queen West) in Toronto on Thursday, November 19 with Bloodshot Bill and Catl opening. Tickets are $15 advance, $18 at the door and available from Ticketmaster, Rotate This, Soundscapes and the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.